


An Insistence on Small Miracles

by Laura



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:18:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura/pseuds/Laura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's the time you get to balance the scales."</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Insistence on Small Miracles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notacute](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notacute/gifts).



> Thanks to M for the fabulous beta. All mistakes are entirely mine.

August, 1992. Then or thereabouts. That's when Jim decided he wanted a career in news. That was the summer his best friend's dad—a guy who'd taken Jim to Twins matches and Bon Jovi concerts—went out one morning and didn't come back. Post traumatic stress disorder, his mom said, and that was the first time he ever heard the phrase. Battle Lake was a small town, full of small-minded, petty gossip, and all that summer, Jim was furious. People shooting their mouths off about stuff they didn't know, people not knowing stuff they should, like how a good man came home from a war and wasn't the same anymore. His older sister swore there was no such thing as a good war, and Jim didn't know if that were true, but he thought the people who fought them deserved to be more than a footnote in the local paper.

He tells this story on Tuesday morning, because he's come along way since then, and, strange as he finds it, when people want to do a piece on journalists with wartime experience, they're interested in what he has to say.

"You were all about the nobility, huh?" the reporter says. She's pretty, though Jim can't exactly say why. There's a hint of a smile when she asks the question, an understanding look in her eyes.

"I was gonna change the world," Jim says. "Which is the God-given right of every seventeen year-old who never new a lot about disappointment growing up."

"You've still got time," she says, and the smile is fully there now, warm and sweet. "That's what I tell myself, anyway."

She gives him her number—the one she doesn't use for work. He pockets it and thinks he probably won't call. He doesn't throw it away, though, takes it and his developing bad mood to the rundown.

"You look like shit," will says, and that's something, coming from a man who routinely looks like he hasn't slept in a month. "Bad enough that I've noticed, and I hate it when I notice things about people."

"Maybe it's the music," Jim says. This could be true. It's as good an explanation as any for Jim's lack of festive spirit, though the broken heating and the shitty ratings and being here at all would be reason enough. And yet, on top of everything, there's _Wonderful Christmas Time_ playing from one of the computers. If there's a God, NASA will be wholly wrong and the world will end on Friday.

Since Jim's faith tends more towards NASA than God, he says, "it's 4:30. In the afternoon, in case anyone was confused." He looks around the room to see if anyone's paying him the slightest bit of attention. They aren't. Mac's practically horizontal in her chair, humming along off-key and completely failing to solve a rubric's cube. Tamara seems to be responsible for the music, and Sloan's wearing a Santa hat that looks way too big for her while she makes snowflakes out of paper. Neal and Maggie are huddled over a laptop, heads bent together. Jim honestly thinks he could kill them all and not regret it. "You think we should put a show together?"

Mac goes on slouching, unconcerned, in her chair. "The show is nothing to me," she says, exactly like a person who isn't out of her mind. "I need a tradition, Jim," and Will says, "Oh, for fuck's sake," which is a perfectly valid response, even if it's the sort of thing Will tends to say just to show that he's got no particular interest in her.

"Syria and the fiscal cliff, then," Jim says, in an ostentatiously let's get things done voice. Five Christmases he's spent with Mac, at least three of which they've been far from home, two of them in war zones, and this year is the one she chooses to go a bit crazy. 

Jim's talked her out of organising a team performance of a nativity/Hanukkah play, carolling live on air, or skydiving in Santa costumes. He doesn't have the energy to go another round with her on another wildly impractical or deeply incomprehensible idea. "Unless anyone's got anything better?" It's a forlorn hope, coming in six or seven places below the heating working again before New Years, or Jim's hangover disappearing within the hour. It's only Tuesday, and the week's promising to be the worst week yet in a month of shitty ones. Hurricanes and war and the failure of the democratic process, that's what they've got.

"We do news," Will says. "We don't do _better_."

Mac rolls her eyes — pointlessly, since Will's not even looking at her. The bells on Sloan's hat jingle as she switches attention from the pile of paper in front of her. "I'm gonna need between, I dunno, three minutes to six hours to explain why raising the Medicare age is truly terrible policy. There you go. Show taken care of for the rest of the week." She glares at Jim, as if he might be the politician who suggested it. 

Sloan probably still thinks she might change the world, too, and, to be fair, if anyone had a shot at it, he wouldn't bet against it being her. "What's scary there is that the Santa hat doesn't make you look less scary," he says. "And also, far be it from me to repeat myself ad infinitum, but I didn't say it was a _good_ strategy. Just that we might be advised not to rule it out." 2011 they started having this argument; Jim feels like it's been going on for decades.

"Rule nothing out. That's the spirit. You know what would help cut the deficit? Rolling back child labor laws."

"I don't think it—"

"I wrote a paper on it. It would."

"She did," Mac says. "I read it. I understood every fifth word or so." Then she leans forward, her elbows landing hard on the table. "You understand I'm saying a festive tradition. A tradition for the season. An event to be repeated as the years pass. A thing to give meaning--"

"We understand what you mean, you psychotically deranged lunatic," Will says, and under his cover, Jim adds, "We just don't care."

"I care a bit," Sloan says, and it doesn't matter that she's probably just punishing Jim for trying to kill senior citizens, because Mac still smirks at him. 

"Will hates Christmas," she says to Sloan. "I know that must be hard to believe in light of his warm and fluffy exterior."

"In my defence," Will says, "I didn't used to. Then someone ran me over on Christmas Eve." 

Mac nods, with an enthusiasm Jim doesn't find entirely appropriate. "He's talking about me," she says, as if Will was being subtle. She looks at Will, her eyebrows drawing together in irritation. "I barely grazed you. It's ridiculous you even still talk about it."

"I had two broken ribs!"

"Well, sure, but it was icy. You could have been killed. Do I get credit for not killing you? No. Not once." She sips thoughtfully at her coffee. "If I ran you over again, that would be like the start of a tradition, wouldn't it?"

The rest of the room looks interested now, God help him. Maggie even wheels herself to their end of the table. That's a first today; she's been distant and distracted since this morning, even allowing for how distant she's been around him since she broke up with Don.

Jim really does want to prepare a show, preferably for tonight, and he really isn't in the mood to watch another second of Will and Mac dancing around each other. "If you're running people over, could you start with me? And make sure to kill me."

"That's hardly a thing I could repeat each year," Mac says. "I thought you understood the meaning of tradition."

"I can fire you on Friday," Will says. "It's how I sleep at night."

"See, warm and fluffy."

"As if warm and fluffy is something to aspire to," Will says. "It's like aiming to be a pair of socks. I doubt it would do much for the show."

"People like socks a lot, actually," Maggie says, just as Mac says, "People like socks more than you."

Jim's been planning to talk to Mac, alone, because if he gets her on side, Will's halfway done, anyway. But he's tired, and it doesn't seem like much else useful is going to be discussed at the moment. Besides which, he's a senior producer; he'd like to think he's gone beyond needing Mac to make his case for him, that here, at least, he's made some progress in the last year. 

"There's a priest on 42nd Street," he says, loud enough to shut them all up. "The Church of Holy Cross. He just lost funding, so he's trying to raise awareness for a project he's running." Mac looks questioningly at him, and Jim says, "He's put together a choir for homeless and displaced people."

"That sounds like it would be God-awful," Will says, and to his credit, he looks like he knows he's an asshole even before Mac thumps him. "Fine. It's a very nice idea. We're still not covering it."

"We do news, not kindness," Mac says, in what's either an impression of Will or the Cookie Monster. It isn't entirely clear.

"If you want heartfelt and uplifting, there's Oprah."

Mac hits him again. "You're such an arse, Will. Open your mind to good! That's what you need to do."

"I'll certainly consider it for next year. In the meantime, Syria and the fiscal cliff. Sloan, you should wear the hat on air."

Will's half out of his chair already when Jim says, "I'm serious. It's a good story. Perfect for this time of year." 

"Isn't it a bit—" Tamara looks around for help. "Can we not do a patronising story about homeless people?"

Will nods. "Or a feel-good Christmas story. Let's not do one of those."

"Feeling good at Christmas would be awful," Jim says. "I can see why we'd want to avoid that. And showing a positive story about people coming together even in terrible circumstances would also be fucking unthinkable. Let's keep on with the misery." 

"Let's get today's show out of the way," Mac says, and Jim shuts up, because this is an old argument, too. He could push it, but Mac's looking at him, frown line between her eyebrows, already suspicious. She reads him better than anyone here, than almost anyone anywhere.

"I've got some questions I thought we could ask Victoria Nuland," he says, and Mac looks at him a moment longer before getting down to work. 

***

Jim doesn't want to be at the party. The suite is lovely, stained glass windows and pillars decked out with Christmas lights, all the food and all the drink he could ask for. But right now, he wants to be in Minnesota, with his Dad in the den and his mom in the music room, a cold beer and New York several hundred miles away. Only he's not there, and he doesn't know why. Except for how he does. He's not stupid, whatever else he is.

At the bar, he can see Neal and Kaylee laughing, and Mac and Will are arguing, which is clearly flirting even from here. The sound doesn't carry to the balcony, but it looks warm, the way Neal leans in to her, shoulders knocking against each other, the way Mac and Will don't even seem to notice there are other people in the room.

"Sort of makes you sick, doesn't it?"

Maggie's lovely in a pink dress. Silk, Jim thinks, thin straps and just low enough to be sexy without showing too much. Lisa would've liked it, might even have picked it for her, if Lisa talked to her these days.

"Still over with Don, huh?" He doesn't intend for it to come out mean, but that doesn't change the fact that it does.

Maggie doesn't blush or look away. She nods, earrings swinging. "Picked up the last of my stuff this afternoon," she says. Her smile is fleeting and it doesn't touch her eyes. "It was very amicable. That's how I know it's definitely over."

"Guess that's lucky." Lisa had cried, delivered her verdict on him in a cold, concise dissection. Selfish and cruel and a coward. There was more, of course, but that was the gist, and the truest part of it. Now, he says, "We fucked up, Maggie. They deserved better." Lisa certainly did, and Don tried; they've got to give him points for that.

Maggie's fingers clench around the glass in her hand. She raises it to her mouth, lowers it without drinking. "We're those people. You know the ones? The ones you hear about from a friend, and you sit around talking about them?"

Jim does. He stayed with Lisa when he should have left, lied when he should have been honest. "I spent the morning talking about being shot at. The courage of being a reporter in a war zone." He shrugs,, not knowing what else to say. "I think she was impressed. And you know the worst part is—" he breaks off, sips the champaign from his own glass while he watches her. There's light all around her, streaming from the open door behind her and the streetlights and the moon overhead. It catches and shimmers on her dress, her hair. She's as beautiful as he's seen her. He should want to kiss her. Three months ago he did.

"Moment's gone for you and me," she says, and she looks sad but not disappointed. "I figure that's about right."

She doesn't stick around long after that. She glances back over her shoulder once as she disappears into the crowd, and he's still there when Neil comes looking for him. "Maggie sent me to find you," he says. "You're kind of old to be this emo." 

He stands by Jim at the railing, arms folded on the barrier as he looks at the street below. Even from this distance it looks good. New York at Christmas, all lit up and full of life. Beside him, Jim stays quiet, and Neal doesn't push. It's one of the things Jim likes best about him. In an office where someone always has something to say, Neal knows when to shut up.

"My mom's sick," Jim says, finally. It feels safe to say it here, seven stories up, the party muted and quiet behind them through the closed door. Not real, somehow. "Or maybe not. They're doing tests. What the fuck do I know?"

"I'm sorry." Neal turns to look at him, but Jim keeps facing forward. "You should go home."

Jim nods. "She told me not to. Not until we finish Monday's show, like we planned." He does turn, then; if he's sharing, he might as well do it properly. "I haven't told her about Lisa. Or Maggie—any of it. My sisters always say I'm the golden boy. I'd rather not disappoint her, you know?"

Neal squeezes his arm, his fingers pressing firm through Jim's jacket. "I think you're underestimating her," he says. "I doubt she thinks you're all that perfect."

Jim shakes his head. "It's not that. It's just — she taught me to be kind. Before anything else, she said that was what counted." He feels small and helpless, has done for days. "I don't think I've been very good at that this year."

Neal says, "And now I think you're underestimating you," and when Jim shakes his head, he sighs. "Christmas isn't really my thing," he says, after a few moments. "But you know what I tell myself about it? What makes it better than just presents and a story that might not be true?"

Jim shakes his head again, and Neil says, "You get to balance the scales a bit. You get to be the person you want to be, and you get to believe in better things."

"You sound like Mac," Jim says, and Neil shrugs.

"She hides it well, but she's pretty smart."

When Neal holds the door open, Jim walks through. He'd hardly noticed he was cold, but he's glad for the rush of heat that envelops him, and for the familiar faces that turn in his direction. The cameramen wave him over, and Sloan and Don are dancing, but they both smile at him as he makes his way to Will.

"I'm getting drunk," will announces, as if he isn't already there. 

Jim says, "Good. You drink, I'll talk."

***

Will meets him in the rain, twenty minutes after he's supposed to. "I got lost," he says. "More than once."

Jim laughs, mostly because he's surprised Will made it at all. "There are dead people you're making look good," he says, as he leads him inside. The church is quiet, and Jim isn't religious most of the time, but he likes the tradition, the attempt to make order out of chaos with some words and some symbols. Mostly, he likes the man coming from the alter to meet them.

"You brought a friend," he says, and Jim introduces Will, and Father Michael grins, sharp and pleased. "I know who he is, of course. Your show is very interesting."

Will smiles back, almost friendly. "that's one of the kinder things I've heard about it."

Father Michael settles himself on a pew, gestures for them to do the same. "Have you ever heard my guys sing?"

Will shakes his head. "I only know what Jim's told me. I won't lie, Father. I'm here because Jim asked me." He doesn't add that he was drunk when he agreed, falling out a cab and pretending not to be.

"And you're not keen on the idea?"

"Of the choir? I think the choir's fine."

"Of us appearing on your show. I doubt Jim brought you here for anything else."

"I think that's a terrible idea."

"Because you're a serious newsman, and you cover serious subjects. War and politics. Corruption and injustice. The big stuff. A little rage, a lot of wrong."

"I wouldn't put it quite like that, but close enough."

"And why is only darkness serious? Why isn't what we use to fight it worthy of the same respect?"

"I ask him that all the time!" In the silence of the church, it comes out louder than he planned. Will looks at him, eyebrows arched in disbelief, and Jim waves his hand dismissively, pretending not to be embarrassed.

"Fine, maybe I don't say it, but it's what I mean. All those times I suggest the local interest story, that's what I'm saying. The teachers running extra classes for kids from broken homes, or the employees at Marco's cutting their hours so no one gets fired. Those stories tell us something, too."

"And the world's largest doughnut?"

"That was just cool. My point is—what he said."

Will says, "Are they good, this choir of yours?"

"You're a newsman. Do a little research. Maybe even show up tomorrow night, and see for yourself."

"You're very annoying," Will says.

Father Michael laughs, rubs his hands together. "That's one of the kinder things I've heard."

Outside, Will buys a coffee from a stand, gulps at it like he's gone a hundred years without any. "Ow," he says, and then, "you never say that," he says. "I mean, quite literally never."

Jim jams his hands in his pockets. He looks up at the sky, bleak and overcast, and stubbornly offering no hint of snow. He doesn't have a problem arguing with Will, but they don't talk much, not about actual _stuff_. "I like what we do. I mean, I really, really do. I get that we report terrible things because terrible things happen. That's important, obviously. That's our job. But he's right. You could just allow a little more hope, sometimes." He swallows hard, says, "Sometimes that's all there is."

"Nobody ever changed the world without it," Will says, like he's remembering something. Then he throws his coffee in the trash, and they walk on in silence. It isn't until they reach the studio that he says, "Hope's hard for me," and that might be the most honest thing he's ever told Jim. "Also, sometimes you just gotta yell at me louder."

***

"This is my favourite Christmas song. It's very unoriginal of me, but there you have it." 

Jim smiles at Mac, and _Oh, Holy Night_ builds, beautiful and fragile. It fills the church, and maybe they're not Bach choir good, but they are _good_. His Mom would like them, he knows.

"My mother does a pretty good version," he says. "Christmas Eve tradition, her and the piano."

"You called. While we were travelling, and she played." Mac smiles this time, remembering. "Have you booked your flight yet?"

Jim doesn't ask how she knew, if it was Neal or guesswork or some combination of the two. "Leaving Saturday morning," he says, and Mac looks like she might say something more, but then Will comes over, and she turns on him.

"We should cover them. And I'll tell you why."

"Please don't," Will says, and Jim smiles, says, "Because it's Christmas. Because Mac wants a tradition and I want something better, and this has been a terrible month, and very possibly a terrible year, and there's a group of people who found their way to each other and are actually trying to build something out of absolutely nothing. They show up and practice every week, and they haven't given up, and I _like them_."

"And also! Also, Will, you don't open your mind to good and it finds you. That is a lie. You have to look for it. You have to look for it, and you have to hang onto it. And you, you are _terrible_ at both those things."

_"I'm inviting them back to the studio," Will says. "I was just coming over to make sure you were good with it."_

_"I wouldn't object," Mac says, and she smiles at him. Jim knows neither Lisa nor Maggie ever smiled at him like that — like she knows he's an idiot, but like he's the best thing she's ever laid eyes on anyway._

_"You're both morons," Jim says as Will walks away. "I mean, really. And I've got extensive experience in this department."_

_"In _my_ experience, that applies to anyone who's ever lived." She reaches out, surprising him by draping an arm around his shoulders. She used to do that, before, back when they went to Iraq and he was terrified and trying not to show it. "Your mistake was thinking you were different. You screwed up," she says. "You'll do better next time."_

_Jim looks meaningfully at where Will's talking to the choir. Mac steps on his foot. "Shut up," she says._

_The choir arrive at 7. There's still no snow yet, but there's ice on the ground, and it's so cold Mac tells Jim she thinks the hairs in the inside of her nose might be freezing. Jim and Neal are setting up trays of hot chocolate and coffee, turkey sandwiches and mince pies. Sloan and Maggie watch, offering advice on how they could do a better job. Jim feels better than he has all week, because he's going home, and all of this—all of these people—will still be here when he gets back. There's a space cleared in the lobby, a crowd of people gathering. _Silent Night_ flows into _The Colours of christmas_ , the notes hanging in the air, and Jim has the ridiculous feeling that he could reach out and grab them, tuck them away, safe for later._

_"This really should be our tradition," Mac says, glancing over at him. Will's beside her, watching. He's got a notepad in his hand, but he's not written a word._

_"That's one of your less ludicrous ideas," he says. He shoves a package into her hands before she can answer. "Brought you your Christmas present. This seems like as good a time as any to give you it."_

_Neal elbows Jim to make room so he can get a better view. Mac slices her finger opening it, says, "A lethal gift." And then she says nothing for a while, when she sees what's inside._

_"Only you would take the arsiest thing you've ever done and make it a Christmas present," she says, finally. She waves a thick bundle of paper, pointing dementedly at Will with her other hand. Jim doesn't have to guess what she's holding. He's pretty sure the threats of Friday firings are a thing of the past._

_"I'm pretty special that way." Will watches her, quiet and still. Neal and Jim keep watching, too, not even pretending otherwise._

_"Someone told me I didn't give hope enough of a chance," Will says. He glances at Jim, unusually sheepish, and then back at Mac. "I hate not being good at things."_

_"That's the worst pickup line I've ever heard," Mac says, and it really might be. But she's smiling, reaching out for Will as the choir falls silent._

_"About fucking time," Don says, appearing from God knows where and ruining the moment. He makes straight for Sloan, and he catches her arm, turns her to face him. "Do you want to be like them? I don't. So I'm saying—I like you. I'd like you not to be a rebound. I'd like you to reply to my texts, and I'd like to see what happens."_

_Maggie says, "That's how it's done!"_

_"It was unnervingly normal," Neal says. "I'm not sure I like it."_

_"I'm not sure I like any of you," Don says. He grabs mulled wine off a tray, hands one to Sloan. "You haven't agreed yet, by the way."_

_She takes the cup, squeezes Don's fingers. "I'm willing to try you out," she says. "But I'm very picky. It's doubtful you'll make the grade."_

_Jim looks at Maggie as they bicker, and she shrugs. "I like them both," she says. "It's not like we were ever going to work. Plus, now we don't have to feel guilty about him."_

_Will's got his arm around Mac. He's laughing, this unguarded, happy look on his face Jim never expected to see. The choir are singing again, _Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas_ this time. Maggie's beside him now, close and unselfconscious about it. _

_"We're gonna be friends, right?" Jim says, and she nods._

_"Good ones. I'll tell you when you're being an idiot; you'll tell me. We'll be an awesome team." She flashes him a smile, open and sincere like before things got stupid. "As a show of good faith, I'll take you to the airport."_

_"I'd like that," he says, and he raps his arms around her as she steps forward to hug him._


End file.
